Medical Mystery Solved: How HealthPartners is Saving Lives

Premier healthcare provider HealthPartners has been at the forefront of medicine since 1976 when Dr. Richard Jonsson founded the organization as an urgent care clinic in downtown Minneapolis that saw more than 10,000 patients that first year alone. Today, it has grown to become one of Minnesota’s largest integrated healthcare delivery systems, with nearly 100 sites across the state and almost 20,000 physicians and other caregivers on staff. In fact, you might have gone to one of HealthPartners’ clinics or hospitals recently and not even know it!

Introduction

HealthPartners and Partners in Heath, two organizations that makeup Partners HealthCare are here to help. Not only do they offer valuable services to their employees, but they have also helped save a life. Brenda Severson was searching for information on a procedure online when she came across the Partners in Health website. From there she found her way to the HealthPartners mychart site where she called their customer service number and discovered an accurate medical mystery had been solved - at least for her. After discovering that cancerous cells were on both sides of her thyroid and working with an attentive customer service representative who used the mychart system Brenda was able to get treatment promptly, catching it early enough before it spread or caused any other damage.

What is HealthPartners?

HealthPartners strives to improve the health of its members and communities. HealthPartners offers care in a variety of ways, including physician clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies, and urgent care centers. They are also one of the largest employers in Minnesota with more than 30,000 employees. The company has been recognized as one of the nation's most ethical companies by Ethisphere Institute for four years. Health Partners' quality improvement initiatives have helped reduce hospital readmission rates by more than 30 percent over the past five years. In 2013 alone, these efforts saved Medicare nearly $1 billion in healthcare costs.

The Problem

An alarming number of patients have been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and have not received care, often resulting in more costly hospitalizations and reduced quality of life. Healthcare Partners created park Nicollet chart, a web-based patient portal, to make healthcare as easy as checking email. Park Nicollet chart provides patients with the ability to securely communicate with their providers through email. Patients can also track lab results, request prescription refills, and review test results using this software. Since the inception of the chart program, Healthcare Partners has seen decreased rates of congestive heart failure diagnoses and increased follow-up care from healthcare providers in its network.

The Solution

Health Partners in Women's Health was created to address the need for more targeted, coordinated care for women across their lifespans. It provides an integrated network of physicians and providers that work together to offer comprehensive services in multiple specialties, including OB/GYN, Family Medicine, Urology, Cancer Services, and Diagnostic Imaging. Health Partners offers a unique approach to healthcare by partnering with other organizations such as hospitals and clinics that share the same patient population. This ensures that all of the needs of women are met without duplication of effort or cost.

Results

A recent study by Partners Healthcare has found that health partners' urgent care facilities are saving lives. In the past five years, these urgent care centers have seen a dramatic increase in the number of patients who arrive with serious illnesses and injuries, but are discharged from the facilities within 24 hours. This has led to an 8% decrease in deaths at these health partners' urgent care facilities. We're seeing more people coming in with life-threatening illnesses, such as heart attacks or pulmonary embolisms, said Dr. Eric Tsai, director of emergency medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School faculty member.

Conclusion

Health Partners, a company owned by two hospitals, has been on the cutting edge of healthcare in their community. Their commitment to personalized and caring care has helped them save lives. Partner's HealthCare recently did a study of 16 years worth of data. What they found was that out of 19 million patients they treated over 16 years, there were only three cases where these patients died from sepsis or other potentially preventable complications. This work shows just how important it is for hospital systems to partner up and to be open about their findings. All this hard work and dedication have really made partners health care an exemplary organization that never leaves anything to chance when it comes to providing the best possible care to its patients.